RFK Jr. has been warning us for years about crony capitalism and is a leader in democracy preservation, the environment and how we need to proceed globally for a sustainable future. Below Chris Stone wrote a great piece on RFK Jr. and we would like to share it with you.

Warning about the “milestones of tyranny,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warns that crony capitalism can undermine democracy and lead corporations to see U.S. workers and the environment as mere commodities.

Speaking at a “Forging a Sustainable Future” conference at San Diego State University, Kennedy cited mining activities in West Virginia: “You can’t even say there is democracy in that state anymore. It’s a company town.”

He said 95 percent of the mines are “owned by Wall Street interests” and have “manipulated the political process to liquidate the state of cash.”

Kennedy, a New York environmental attorney, made the remarks to more than 200 participants at a conference about conserving the environment through alternatives.

The event—sponsored by Heartland Coalition and United Green with the help from Mount Helix resident Miriam Raftery—featured panel discussions about energy and natural resources by local political figures and specialists.

Kennedy, 60, is the second-oldest son of Robert F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1968 in Los Angeles during his bid for the presidency.

He spoke without notes or prompter for about 80 minutes about his vision for a national electrical grid, solar energy, wind energy and electric cars and the obstacles in the path—polluters and corporations that he said circumvented the free-market system and sought to dominate the government.

Kennedy, who has worked in environmental causes for more than 30 years, is the chief prosecuting attorney for Hudson Riverkeepers and for the Natural Resources Defense Council and is a partner in VantagePoint Ventures.

“Whenever you see large-scale destruction of the environment, you also see the subversion of democracy,” the activist said, adding that destruction takes place at local levels where regulations are subverted and transparency disappears.

“Corporations are great things,” Kennedy said, “because they encourage people to accumulate, to assemble money, take risks and create jobs in the process.”

But he asserted that business shouldn’t run government because businessmen “don’t want the same thing for America that the American people want.

As a counterbalance, Kennedy said, America needs an independent press and an informed citizenry that recognizes “all the milestones of tyranny.”

“The first thing that happens in any tyranny is for the powerful entities of society to privatize public trust and turn a profit for themselves,” he said.

He lamented the United States as the “best entertained and least informed civilization on the face of the earth.”

Kennedy described what he said was the huge difference between free market capitalism and “the kind of crony capitalism which we have now embraced through the crooked, corporatist Supreme Court which is antithetical to efficiency, prosperity and democracy in America.”

The high court’s Citizens United case allowing unrestricted political spending by corporations and unions is the “death knell of democracy,” he said.
Since that decision, corporations use their surplus money to invest in the political campaign process, Kennedy said.

“They get their hooks into a public official and use that official to dismantle the marketplace and get rid of democracy, so they don’t have to obey the rules and regulations, capture the agencies that are supposed to regulate them and then steal from us the public trust resources—our Treasury, our air and water—things that our children own.”

He recalled a conversation about West Virginia with his father when he was 14.

Kennedy said his father, a senator from New York, told him that in addition to polluting the environment, the coal companies permanently impoverish a community by making its land unusable in the future.

Kennedy said his father concluded they were out to break the unions. In fact, his father said there were 149,000 union workers in West Virginia. Today there are only 14,000.

“Nine out of 10 jobs were eliminated not by environmental rules but by a ruthless, deliberate and systematic strategy by the coal industry to eliminate jobs and replace them with machines and explosives,” he said.

Kennedy warned that corporations want to spread this “colonial model of the economy” across the country.

He denounced polluters as companies that “raise the standard of living for themselves while lowering the quality of life for everyone else.”

Coal companies in West Virginia have cut off the tops of 500 of the tallest mountains in the Appalachians by means of detonating 2,500 tons of ammonia nitrate explosives every day—equivalent to weekly blasts of a Hiroshima bomb, he asserted.

Dangerous levels of mercury has been found in all fresh fish sampled in this country, he said, quoting a National Academy of Science study, adding that the Centers for Disease Control links autism with mercury in fish.

That study indicated that one in six American women have dangerous levels of mercury in their wombs and 640,00 babies are born with high levels in their systems, he said in a lecture room in the Excercise and Nutritional Sciences Building.

Kennedy said the Environmental Protection Agency pins the problem on ozone particulates from coal burning plants.

“Right now,” he said, “we have a marketplace that is governed by rules that were written by the incumbents to reward the dirtiest, filthiest, most poisonous, most addicting, most destructive fuel from hell—rather than the cheap, clean, green, wholesome and patriotic fuels from heaven.”

To that end, he advocated a national electrical grid, which could be put into effect the same way the Internet has been brought into almost every home.

Kennedy also spoke of promising technology he is involved in including light bulbs that last for 30 years, Tesla Motors electric cars, wind farms in the Midwest and solar power stations.

North Dakota is the windiest place on Earth at sea level, he said, citing a Scientific American study claiming there is “enough harnessable wind in North Dakota, Montana and Texas to provide 100 percent of the energy need for the entire U.S. energy grid.”

Despite Obama administration efforts toward renewable energy, Kennedy said the major obstacles are government subsidies for the oil industry and the lack of a grid that could carry alternative forms of energy across the country.

Yet he pointed to Iceland, Brazil, Sweden and Costa Rica as nations that have decarbonized their energy economy and have prospered.

Kennedy estimated that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created through alternative energy efforts such as creating an electrical grid, weatherproofing homes, installing solar energy and insulation.

While China plans to invest $750 billion on wind and solar technology over the next five years, he said, he encouraged America to take the lead in electric energy.

China sees this as the “arms race of the 21st century,” he said. “They want to dominate and will if we don’t get off our butts.”

The 13 Moon Walk 4 Peace was the 4th in a series of Walks sponsored by the Spirit of Truth Foundation from 2000 to 2011. The first walk was a walk of healing and reconciliation from Pennsylvania to Georgia, on the Appalachian Trail. The walk was called the Trail of Dreams Ancestral Journey and our purpose was to reconcile the atrocities of the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Trail of Tears. The second walk was in 2002, as the walkers crossed the Atlantic Ocean and continued with the prayers and reconciliation in the slave dungeons and along the routes where Africans were captured and brought to the USA as slaves. From 2005 to 2009, walkers began a global walk for peace (the Trail of Dreams World Peace Walk). Walkers walked six continents, engaging communities, learning from elders and sharing our common concerns for Mother Earth and all life – especially the voiceless. Then on October 10, 2010, walkers began the 13 Moon Walk 4 Peace.
The 13 Moon Walk 4 Peace, as were previous walks, was a people’s walk and was scheduled in alignment with the lunar calendar, which is, according to ancient tradition, the calendar of cooperation. It also aligns with the sacred feminine, which is important to the walkers as their goal is to touch the “heart” of America, to affect healing and transformation in the way we relate to each other and Mother Earth. This will open the way for compassionate leadership at a time when our country needs it most.
“The idea for the 13 Moon Walk for Peace,” says Audri Scott Williams, VisionKeeper for the Trail of Dreams World Peace Walk, “came when we returned to the USA from our three and a half year global walk for PEACE. On our journey from New York back to Atlanta, GA, we were struck by the pockets of poverty and disenfranchised communities that appeared to be under the radar, invisible to the general population. We realized our work was not done, in many ways it was just beginning. We decided, before we even made it back home to Atlanta, that we would do a walk in the USA to be a catalyst for healing the heart of our communities here at home.”
Walkers were from diverse cultures, ancestry, genders, and faiths. The 13 Moon Walk for Peace began in Atlanta, GA, where the Sacred Fire of Thunder, honoring the Great Law of Peace, from Six Nations was passed to the Walkers. The Sacred Fire of Thunder journeyed from Six Nations (for information see: Soul of the Mother, whose mission is to offer Ancient Indigenous wisdom as a means of awakening the true loving essence of the human spirit. We join with the natural rhythm of the heartbeat of our Mother Earth and we are governed by the sacred world of the Spirit.) through communities along the east coast to reach Atlanta in time for the walk. Walkers engaged grassroots groups across the country (42 cities and reservations) to raise awareness of issues affecting our communities, and to highlight grassroots groups and organizations that are making a difference in their communities.
As I write this article, we are preparing for the conclusion of yet our 5th walk, Out of Washington Comes Respect for Mother Earth – A Walk for the Environment from Washington, DC to Tuskegee, AL. Central to all of our walks is the inclusion of ancient practices and ways of coming to understanding ourselves in relationship to the world around us that we may be better caregivers to each other, Mother Earth and all living beings. In this spirit, we joined with the Heal the Atmosphere Association to share with communities along the walk something that anyone can practice Agnihotra or homatherapy as a “solution to pollution”. Agnihotra is the process of purifying the atmosphere through specially prepared fire. This healing fire comes from the Vedas, the most ancient body of knowledge known to man.
Diane Longboat’s, Soul of the Mother, message is a great summary of the knowledge shared by elders along our walks and whose wisdom is the foundation of our walks:
This declaration affirms my abiding belief in humanity that we can justly acknowledge our collective history and develop a new relationship that propels us into a future where peace is a lived consciousness each day and the new brotherhood, founded on mutual respect and the celebration of diversity, guides us into falling in love with all of creation. The Code of Life is written on the land, in our respective homelands throughout the world where we walk on the faces of our Ancestors and renew our commitments to a life of peace. Our reconciliation is both human based and with our Mother Earth who must be revitalized from the vestiges of war and conflict.

In my prayers I return to the Original Instructions that our Creator gave to all Beings, human and those seated in His Council of Creation. I acknowledge the suffering of genocide to all Indigenous white peoples, black peoples, yellow peoples and to our red peoples throughout time. I pray for forgiveness, reconciliation through ceremony and for the emergence of a new relationship leading us forward as Human Family in this profoundly exciting New Era of Humanity.

I acknowledge the physical and emotional results of genocide as racism, poverty, classism, displacement, loss of homelands, betrayal, profound grieving, oppression of ancient spiritual traditions rooted in the land and in Spirit, and loss of cultural treasures and wisdoms.

How do we rebuild what has been lost? How do we collectively meet the future to ensure that the reality we create for the unborn is one of deep love and respect for diverse peoples, an honest reflection of our core human values that we treasure, humbly seeking a life way that is sustainable on our Mother Earth, firmly establishing a place of honor for all ancient Indigenous wisdoms, boldly and fearlessly building a new paradigm based on Spirit of all religious and spiritual traditions and establishing a path of truth for generations to come?

I believe in the inherent good of all human beings. I also believe that the greatest enemy of all we hold dear is not each other, politics, money, power or influence, governments or transnational corporations. It is the mind of the human being that is poisoned with ego when the heart and spirit is not connected to the Creator as the greatest power in the universe. We need sacred spiritual guidance each day in our prayers so that we can manifest the sacred here on Mother Earth. We live in a deeply sacred time, the crucible of humanity is now. We are being birthed and launched into the era of living spirit where all prophecies are fulfilled and converge from every deeply rooted ancient spiritual tradition. It is the Era of Living Spirit. We are so fortunate to be alive to play our respective roles in this divine process.

In my language of Mohawk, I say each day, “kanaronkwa”. It means, “we bind ourselves together in the spirit of the Creator’s greatest medicine that is love. In doing so, we fall in love with each other and with all of Creation. I suggest the declaration use the word LOVE in many languages as respective peoples and organizations sign on.

In my language of Mohawk, I say each day, “kanaronkwa”. It means, “we bind ourselves together in the spirit of the Creator’s greatest medicine that is love. In doing so, we fall in love with each other and with all of Creation. I suggest the declaration use the word LOVE in many languages as respective peoples and organizations sign on.

Common to our walks since 2005, has been the presence of the World Flag. We uphold the mission and goals of the World Flag.
The World Flag:
Our Mission is to inspire positive global change by embracing and celebrating cultural diversity.
Our Goal is to raise awareness of countries, territories, and indigenous peoples around the world, awakening a united focus on world health, human rights and our environment.

May We Walk in the Remembrance of Who We Are,
Audri Scott Williams
aewnowtime@aol.com
www.audriscottwilliams.com
www.13moonwalk4peace.com

The World Flag was created as a Visual Catalyst. It fly(s) as a unifying symbol inspiring positive global change while continuing to embrace and celebrate cultural diversity. The World Flag Project raises awareness in the areas of Education, World Health, Human Rights and the Environment.

Created in 1988 by Paul Carroll, the World Flag is a global image meant to resonate with the people of the world. The design of the World Flag has in the center an image of the world surrounded by 216 flags. They include every national flag, the flag of the United Nations and some flags of territories dependent in one way or other on larger countries. The distribution of the flags within the design is not random. Underlying symbolism and design innuendo create further depth and meaning . As a “Living Flag -Evolving with History”, each iteration serves as a historic rendering in time. Because of their inherent symbolic, nationalistic, and subconscious power, individual flags offered inherent possibilities for Carroll’s vision. He wrote, “Moving individual flags into the global realm—transcending borders, race, and religions—creates unique impact from micro to macro and back.” The World Flag’s potential to engage individuals and children from around the world is immense. “The power of symbols to both inspire and unite people finds it’s most relevant and meaningful perfection in the national flags and banners of the world.” New Scientist, 5 December 2007.

When I wrote to Tom Robbins to ask if we could share this with The World Flag community, this is what he said! ” I am going on “maternity leave,” in an effort to bring to term my new book in progress.” He also shared that his memory of the commencement speech below was , virtually nothing, except that he squirted the front row in the auditorium with a water pistol:

Enjoy and Please Share!

“I am often asked whether there is life after death. Certainly there is. There is also death after life, and life before death, and death before life. It goes on forever. There is just no stopping it. You will live forever, and die forever. In fact, you already have.
As for Heaven and Hell, they are right here on Earth, and it is up to each of you in which one you choose to reside. To put it simply, Heaven is living in your hopes and Hell is living in your fears. In the traditional image, where hell is down and heaven is up, one escapes from hell by digging a hole in the ceiling. Though in an age of downers and uppers down and up no longer make sense, it is still possible to think of in and out. Think of Hell as in and heaven as out. To get out of hell you expand your soul until it is pushing on all the walls from the inside all the way around. If you just maintain a steady pressure, your soul will gradually filter out into limitless heaven beyond.
One problem with the notion of Heaven and Hell, however, is that, although they are exact opposites, an astonishing number of people see to be confused about which is which. For example, all over the United States on this very evening, commencement speakers are standing before audiences not greatly unlike yourselves, describing Hell as if they were talking about Heaven.
Their speakers are saying things such as, “Graduating Seniors, you have reached the golden threshold of maturity; it is time now to go out into the world and take up the challenge of life, time to face your hallowed responsibility.”And if that isn’t one Hell of a note, it’s certainly one not of Hell.
Growing up is a trap.
As for responsibility, I am forced to ask, “Responsibility to what?” To our fellow humans? Two weeks ago, the newspapers reported that a federal court had ruled that when a person’s brain stops functioning, that person is legally dead, even though his of her heart may continue to beat. That means that 80% of the population of the Earth is legally dead. Must we be responsibly to corpses?
No, you have no responsibility except to be yourself to the fullest limit of yourself, and to find out who you are. Or, perhaps I should say, to remember who you are. Because deep down in the secret velvet of your heart, far beyond your name and your address, each of you knows who you really are. And that being who is the true you cannot help but behave graciously to all other beings- because it is all other beings.
Yet, we are constantly reminded of our…”responsibility”. Responsibility means “obey orders without question, don’t rock the boat, and for God’s sake, get a job.” (Get a job. Sha na na na) That’s the scary one. Get a job. It is said as if it were a holy and inviolable law of nature. But the fact is although cultural humanity has been on earth for some 2 million years, they very concept of jobs is only about 500 years old. A drop in the bucket, to coin the phrase. And with advent of an electronic cybernetic automated technology, jobs are on the way out again. Jobs were just a splash in the pan, a passing fancy. There is no realistic relationship between jobs and work (work being defined as simply one of the more serious aspects of play) any more than there is a realistic relationship between jobs and eating. It is curious how many people believe that if it weren’t for jobs they couldn’t eat. As, if it weren’t for Boeing, their jaws wouldn’t chew; if it weren’t for the Navy their bowels wouldn’t move, and if it weren’t for Weyerhauser (that great destroyer of plants), plants wouldn’t grow. Technocratic assumptions about the identity of humanity, society and nature have warped our experience at it’s source and obscured the basic natural sense of things. Rabbits don’t have jobs. When was the last time you heard of a rabbit starving to death?
Ah, but we must be responsible, and if we are, then we are rewarded with the wite man’s legal equivalent of looting: a steady job, secure income, easy credit, free access to all the local emporiums and a home of your own to pile the merchandise in! And so what if there is no magic in your life, no wonder, no amazement, no playfulness, no peace of mind, no sense of unity with the universe, no giggling joy, no burning passion, no deep understanding, no overwhelming love? At least your ego has the satisfaction of knowing you are a responsible citizen.
Responsibility is a trap.
As a matter of fact, the entire System into which you were born, and which now, upon completion of high (high?) school you must perhaps face more directly, is a System designed to trap you – and manipulate you as a co-operating slave, a System designed to steep you you Hell.
Hell is living in your fears, and it is through fear, both subtle and overt, that the System traps you. Fear of failure, fear of social rejection, fear of poverty, fear of punishment, fear of death.
For example, we are taught to fear something called Communism, and millions of Americans go to sleep each night wondering if Mao Tse Tung is under their bed. Conversely, on the other side of the world, millions of Russians and Chinese go to sleep wondering if
Henry Kissenger is under their bed. Our totalitarian government uses the hoax of the threat of Communism to control and enslave us, just as the totalitarian Communist governments use the hoax of the threat of capitalism to control and enslave their people. It’s an extremely
old and obviously effective trick.

You see, the powers behind Communism and the powers behind Capitalism are virtually the same people. We might also include the powers behind the Vatican and the powers behind Islam. Their main function is to mystify the popular mind by creating illusions of
omnipotence and omniscience with which to command docility from their subjects, although it does not require much thorough investigation to discover that few of the peoples of this world are happy, healthy, or fulfilled. But never mind. There are ways out of the trap, ways, as I earlier suggested out of Hell. The only advice I have for you tonight is not to actively resist or fight the System, because active protest and resistence merely entangle you in the System. Instead, ignore it, walk away from it, turn your backs on it, laugh at it. Don’t be outraged, be outrageous! Never be stupid enough to respect authority unless that authority first proves itself respectable. And, unfortunately, there is no officially sanctioned authority today, from the President of the United States down to the cop on the beat, that has earned the right to your respect. So, be your own authority, lead yourselves. Remember the ways
and means of the Ancient Yogi masters, Pied Pipers, cloud walkers and medicine men. Get in harmony with nature.

Listen to the loony rhythms of your blood. Look for beauty and poetry in everything in life. Let there be no moon that does not know you, no spring that does not lick you with it’s tongues. Refuse to play it safe, for it is from the wavering edge of risk that the sweetest honey of freedom drips. Live dangerously, live lovingly, Believe in magic, Nourish your imagination. Use your head, even if it means going out of your mind. Learn, like the lemon and the tomato learned, the laws of the sun. Become aware, like the jungle became aware, of your own perfume. Remember that life is much too serious to take seriously – - so never forget how to play.
In times of doubt and chaos, it has been the duty of the superior persons- artists, poets, scientists, clowns, and philosophers (certainly no statesmen or military heroes)- to create order in the psychic vibrations of their fellow beings. But in times such as ours, times that are too carefully ordered, too strictly organized, too expertly managed thoroughly programmed and craftily planned, times in which too few control too many, it is the duty of all feeling, thinking humanitarian people to toss their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. On second thought, you do have some responsibility to your fellow beings. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, it is your sacred duty to screw things up royally.
Looking at you tonight, I know you’re going to do just fine.
Let me wrap this up with a few short questions I am often asked.
A difficult question.
(1) Will we be eaten by bugs and worms?
We ought to be. We have eaten, and we ought to be eaten. This is Justice, and there is no stopping it. If you have your body burned, starving the earth to
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(2) Does your soul fly out of your body the moment that you die?
No, this is a foolish superstition. Your soul is constantly
flying out of your body in just the same way that energy is
constantly flying out of the sun. At the monent your body dies, the
soul stops flying out.
(3) Is Jesus coming back?
Yes all the time. And so are you. All souls echo forever throught the universe.

This speech given over 100 years ago could not be more appropriate today than it was then!

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions, and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: “As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: “Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me.” Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

by Buckminster Fuller
1. COMPREHENSIVE PROPENSITIES
I am enthusiastic over humanity’s extraordinary and sometimes very
timely ingenuities. If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are
gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes
along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that
the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top.
I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting
yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for
solving a given problem. Our brains deal exclusively with specialcase experiences. Only our minds are able to discover the
generalized principles operating without exception in each and
every special-experience case which if detected and mastered will
give knowledgeable advantage in all instances.
Because our spontaneous initiative has been frustrated, too often
inadvertently, in earliest childhood we do not tend, customarily, to
dare to think competently regarding our potentials. We find it
socially easier to go on with our narrow, shortsighted
specialization’s and leave it to others — primarily to the politicians
— to find some way of resolving our common dilemmas.
Countering that spontaneous grownup trend to narrowness I will do
my, hopefully “childish,” best to confront as many of our problems
as possible by employing the longest-distance thinking of which I
am capable — though that may not take us very far into the future.
Having been trained at the U.S. Naval Academy and practically
experienced in the powerfully effective forecasting arts of celestial
navigation, pilotage, ballistics, and logistics, and in the long-range,
anticipatory, design science governing yesterday’s naval mastery of
the world from which our present day’s general systems theory has
been derived, I recall that in 1927 I set about deliberately exploring
to see how far ahead we could make competent forecasts regarding
the direction in which all humanity is trending and to see how
effectively we could interpret the physical details of what
comprehensive evolution might be portending as disclosed by the
available data. I came to the conclusion that it is possible to make a
fairly reasonable forecast of about twenty-five years. That seems to
be about one industrial “tooling” generation. On the average, all inventions seem to get melted up about every twenty-five years,
after which the metals come back into recirculation in new and
usually more effective uses. At any rate, in 1927 I evolved a
forecast. Most of my 1927′s prognosticating went only to 1952 —
that is, for a quarter-century, but some of it went on for a halfcentury, to 1977.
In 1927 when people had occasion to ask me about my
prognostications and I told them what I thought it would be
appropriate to do about what I could see ahead for the 1950′s,
1960′s, and 1970′s people used to say to me, “Very amusing — you
are a thousand years ahead of your time.” Having myself studied the
increments in which we can think forwardly I was amazed at the
ease with which the rest of society seemed to be able to see a
thousand years ahead while I could see only one-fortieth of that
time distance. As time went on people began to tell me that I was a
hundred years ahead, and now they tell me that I’m a little behind
the times. But I have learned about public reaction to the unfamiliar
and also about the ease and speed with which the transformed
reality becomes so “natural” as misseemingly to have been always
obvious. So I knew that their last observations were made only
because the evolutionary events I had foreseen have occurred on
schedule.

The symbol that launched a thousand environmental movements…This symbol has come to represent a shift in our collective consciousness – signifying the moment we were willing to admit that we were damaging our planet and that we need to do something about it.

Gary Anderson today. Image by Dave Huh.

Symbol for our future? This is the winning design for a competition held last year by Cereplast, a bioplastics company. The symbol will be printed on the plant-based plastic products created by Cereplast. Gary Anderson was one of the judges of the contest.
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Recycle ManBy C. Malik
In 1970 Gary Anderson, a USC Graduate student entered and won a design contest sponsored by CCA – Container Corporation of America. The competition was to design a graphic symbol which would be used on recycled paper products and which could recognize a commitment to environmental sensitivity on the part of any manufacturer who was engaged in recycling. The winning symbol would be given over to the public domain. The competition was also to honor the first – Earth Day – which was held that same year. Gary’s simple but thoughtful design would go on to become the most iconic symbol of environmental action ever created. The symbol has circled the globe, evokes thought and action, it has no language barrier and never uses a single word. Thankfully for us when I met with Gary Anderson he had plenty to say. Since winning the contest in 1970 Gary has traveled the world pursuing his dreams in the field of Architecture and Planning. He currently lives in Baltimore, MD. I spoke with Gary by phone and very quickly it struck me that his accomplishments combined with his humble nature bared a striking resemblance to the fictional Superheroes that permeate our culture. Gary and I went on to discuss the concept of “Superheroes” and how they might play a role in saving the environment.

C. Malik : Mr. Anderson – do you think you’ve saved the world?

Gary Anderson: “I’d like to think I’ve had some impact; it wasn’t really that I consciously tried to do that but I think the symbol really has just by virtue of the fact that it kind of took off and people have come to really recognize it and understand recycling when they see it…you know, I think it has had a pretty big impact.”

CM: Are you a millionaire?

GA: Extended chuckle. Don’t I wish. No, No, No

CM: Why did you create the recycling symbol?

GA: Well it wasn’t for the money. It was more just kind of a challenge to me a challenge to myself. There was a poster that showed up in my school, the school of architecture and fine arts at USC, advertising this competition. Of course there was no entry fee and it seemed like something I could enter and that wouldn’t take much of anything in the way of resources other than myself some paper and drawing tools I already had. Unlike a big architectural project or something that would probably require input from lots of people, this is something that I could do on my own and seemed like something I could do. I could also support the reason behind the contest, I thought that was commendable so I spent a couple of days on it, came up with the symbol and submitted it.

CM: We talked briefly in our intro about “superheroes” and the expectation related to their symbols. When people see the recycle symbol what do you think that invokes in them, what does it mean to them?

GA: Hopefully recycling, I mean, beyond that people might have different reactions to it. But I think it has come to mean recycling in a lot of people’s minds, which is great, because that’s why they had the competition and that’s what I tried to do when I designed it, so hopefully that’s what people think of.

CM: Who is your favorite superhero and why?

GA: When I was a kid, which is getting longer and longer ago now the main superhero was Superman. I guess there where others around, there was the Phantom, I guess Batman was around already. Superman in my mind was it, he was the one I knew the most about and you know the one that had the highest profile certainly…so just to make the answer short; Superman.

CM: It’s interesting that you pick Superman and mention that the lack of clutter in the Superhero “space” at that time really made Superman stand out. With your symbol there seems to be little competition, would you agree?

GA: Especially when it first came out there really wasn’t, as far as I know there may have been others but that was the only symbol I was aware of for recycling. Frankly, I don’t want to be overly modest but I think just the fact that it was the first one, the first one to get some publicity because it was a competition held by a private company who invested in getting the image out there. I think those two things the fact that it was the first and did get publicity early on I’m sure that helped to establish it as the symbol.

CM: How has the wide adoption of the recycling symbol changed your life?

GA: Not so much. From time to time I get interview requests like this one and sometimes I get invited to functions. I am in fact going up to NJ next week they passed some legislation that mandated recycling in certain areas 25 years ago and so I’ve been invited to the celebration, the 25th anniversary for the NJ recycling program. Aside from things like that not too much, not too long after I won the competition I went overseas to teach so I was kind of out of touch.

CM: Recently you were involved in judging a symbol contest for a company called Cereplast can you expand on the work they are doing?

GA: I think it’s remarkable what they are doing, I don’t think they are the only company that does that, but I think certainly compostable biodegradable plastics are very important in maintaining environmental quality and not polluting the environment with petroleum based products. It’s just fascinating the kinds of products that can be created with bio-plastics and that they seem just as versatile as anything that can be made with petroleum based plastics – so I think it’s wonderful.

CM: What do you think is the most underserved environmental issue today?

GA: Because of what I do and my background I really think there could be much more emphasis and understanding about sustainable planning and urban development. I think it’s just so easy to sprawl, it’s so easy the way things are set up now, the way policy is written the way it is so easy to expand infrastructure. There are plenty of incentives to just build further out and there are no disincentives to keep from doing that or incentives to keep things more compact. I guess eventually it will happen, I will be happy when the public starts to demand more sustainable patterns of development as they do now with more sustainable consumer products.

CM: Who are your environmental heroes, past and present?

G A: Well I have to say they go way back as probably again to the late 60’s early 70’s when I first started be aware of these things myself. So they are really kind of historic now but certainly Ian McHarg who was a landscape architect and planner who wrote the book “Design with Nature” and influenced a lot of people in my generation about sustainability before it had that name. Rachel Carson. She really brought to the attention of the general public what some of the really dire problems could be if we didn’t start to look more carefully or consider more carefully what we’re doing to the environment. Also Bucky Fuller (Buckminster Fuller). Those are the three that come to mind. People should Google them if they don’t know about these people.

CM: If you could create your own Superhero what would it be and what super powers would they have?

GA: I guess it would be “Recycle Man” with the recycling logo on his jersey, whatever that is that superheroes wear or tattooed to his chest or something I don’t know. He would, or she, maybe it’s “recycle lady” or “recycle woman” would fight wasteful practices and nurture an appreciation of sustainability.

We are excited to bring you the updated 2011 edition of The World Flag! Since its inception in 1988, there have been four different versions of The Flag; each edition offers a reflection of our world during that time in history. Some of the major changes on the 2011 World Flag are the Arab Spring nations connected in the shape of a bird in flight; the new flags of, Malawi, Libya, Lesotho, Burma, and Venezuela; and the addition of South Sudan as a new country.